Roasted Chicken + Chicken Stock

Raw chicken plus vegetables, ready to go in the oven.

Roasted chicken, where have you been all my life? OK, seriously, I've been cooking it for a couple years now, but I can't believe it took me this long to get on the bandwagon. There is so much to love! Juicy, tender chicken, slow roasted, caramelized vegetables...all cooked together in one pan.  Leaving me time to actually wash some dishes read a magazine.

I think the problem was that I never knew what to do with the leftover chicken. Bob is not a dark meat fan and I hated the idea of throwing away half of a bird every single time. And then I stumbled upon this article for making chicken stock and I learned something new; it's possible to make chicken stock with cooked meat. I hope I'm not the only person that didn't know that, but all the cookbooks I've ever read on the subject instruct you to start with raw chicken. And we didn't even make chicken stock at my culinary school (too basic, I'm guessing); we spent our days making veal stock instead. Always, always using raw bones and vegetables.

Needless to say, I'm a convert. Instead of only roasting a whole chicken once in a great while, I now roast a whole bird once a month, if not more. And instead of dreading making chicken stock the traditional way (ie., with grease flying all over the kitchen as I browned the parts on the stove), I do my own variation and I'm just as happy with the results. Maybe even happier because my kitchen isn't covered in grease.